Bringing a product to market generally entails a design stage, a manufacturing stage, and a testing stage. Given the competition of the marketplace, it makes sense not to de-prioritize anyone of these stages. For example, decisions made during the design stage influence whether the product will be manufacturable and/or will be testable. Also, the testing stage offers the opportunity to detect design flaws and to uncover manufacturing defects.
Typically, the testing stage is crafted as a product-centric solution or as an equipment-centric solution. In the product-centric solution, the testing set-up is focused and optimized for testing a specific product. If a different product is to be tested, another testing set-up is developed for the different product. In the case of the equipment-centric solution, specific testing equipment forms the foundation of the testing set-up. Measures are taken to deal with the limitations of the specific testing equipment in implementing the testing set-up.